


so you run on gasoline

by questionableatbest



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, it's just angst, jack's od is talked about a lot in the first part so just know that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 09:54:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13187631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/questionableatbest/pseuds/questionableatbest
Summary: As far as roommates went, Swoops was pretty great.They were only actually roommates on the road, but he was quiet and he clean and he didn’t complain about how often Kent went out and got wasted after games, so yeah.He was great.OR kent learns how great swoops is, and he also learns a few things about moving on





	so you run on gasoline

**Author's Note:**

> **previously called the ways we learn to live again
> 
> i feel like i need to start this off with a disclaimer that i know kent is garbage and i don't condone any of his behaviour etc. etc. etc. but i also find him really interesting and fun to write about? so please enjoy i guess?
> 
> (also this is the first thing i've posted on here in months so please be kind to me)

As far as roommates went, Swoops was pretty great.

They were only actually roommates on the road, but he was quiet and he clean and he didn’t complain about how often Kent went out and got wasted after games, so yeah.

He was great.

Of course, that didn’t change the fact that, after the Aces lost to the Habs in the first game Kent ever played against them and the Zimmermann’s didn’t bother to show up, Kent didn’t want to be around anybody at all because, really.

He wasn’t an idiot.

Obviously the Zimmermann’s cared about Jack more than him, and obviously this whole thing has been harder on them than it’s been on him, and obviously they didn’t actually owe Kent anything, but there’d also been a time when they were sort of like parents to him and it hadn’t really been all that long ago, so yeah.

Maybe Kent had been holding out a little bit of hope that Bob and Alicia would show up at the game and say they were proud of him, and tell him that they didn’t blame him for everything, and just let him know that Jack was doing alright, but that hadn’t happened and Kent was crushed.

He’d waited for them at every turn, hoping they’d be by the locker room, or in the stands, or at press, or by the bus, and then Kent was on the bus, being driven away from the arena and towards the hotel, and he hadn’t seen them at all and he’d run out of time to.

When they actually got back to the hotel, Kent kept his headphones in and ignored the group he normally went out with, and he ignored the looks he was getting from the coaches and the vets, and he ignored the fact that he was kind of being a dick, and he headed straight for his room.

When he got there, he headed straight for the shower.

When he locked the bathroom door behind him, he tried not to think about how he’d kicked one of them down to get to Jack just months ago, and when he turned the shower on as hot as it would go, he tried not to think about how it had been running cold and making Jack’s skin unnaturally icy by the time Kent had actually gotten there.

When he took off his clothes and got in the shower, he tried not to think about anything at all, and when he sat down, he started to cry.

His tears were big and ugly and wet, and the sobs wracked through his body and made him feel like he was dying, and the room steamed up and made it hard to breathe, and the hot water burnt but it also almost felt like a hug, so Kent stayed there and he cried until he felt empty.

When he was done, he felt tired and sluggish and drained, so it took a moment to turn off the shower and another to actually stand up, and then he grabbed one of the fluffy hotel towels that barely absorbed any water, and he started to function like a human again.

He dried himself the best he could, and he pulled on a pair of sweatpants but didn’t bother with his shirt, and he brushed his teeth and washed his face and tried to ignore how blotchy and red he was, and then he opened the bathroom door and came face to face with Swoops, whose hand was poised in the air like he’d been about to knock.

Kent blinked, and then he said, “I-” and then he realized that he didn’t actually have anything to say and his voice was a croaky mess, so he just blinked again.

For his part, Swoops blinked as well, and his cheeks were a tiny bit red but everything else about him was steady when he said, “I was just wanted to make sure that you were alright,” and, yeah.

That was fair, and Kent couldn’t actually blame him for that, but he frowned anyways. “Why wouldn’t I be?” he asked, and his voice was still cracking but he tried not to falter, and Swoops pursed his lips.

“You snapped at a reporter during press, you just spent half an hour in the shower, and even when you’re drunk you manage to hang up your coat, but right now it’s on the ground by the door, so.”

“So, what? You watch one episode of Sherlock and suddenly you’re a detective?” Kent asked, harsh and biting and, yeah, he was being a dick, but Swoops barely flinched.

He just said, “So I’m your friend, and I’m worried,” and that hit Kent like a load of bricks, but he just swallowed down the lump in his throat and kept glaring.

He also ignored Swoops’ concern entirely, and raised an eyebrow and just asked, “And are you going to move any time soon, or…?” and Swoops narrowed his eyes, finally starting to look as impatient as Kent felt.

Still, he just asked, “Are you going out?” and Kent sighed.

“Does it look like I’m going out?” he demanded, five seconds away from taking a step back into the bathroom and slamming the door in Swoops’ face for dramatic effect, when he noticed Swoops’ eyes dip lower for half a second, landing on Kent’s bare chest and tracing the lines there, which-

Which made Kent pause and reconsider everything he knew about Swoops, which wasn’t actually all that much.

He was a rookie like Kent, but he’d come from the NCAA, whereas Kent had come straight from the Q. He was from Vancouver, Kent thought, and he’d gone to Harvard for a program that Kent couldn’t quite put a name on, and he’d somehow managed to play college basketball and hockey at the same time, and he had a wrist shot that could break glass.

He also had broad shoulders and dark hair and a slightly crooked smile that could probably charm the entire world, and Kent was almost positive that he was checking him out, but then-

But then Swoops frowned and he said, “It looks like you’re being a dick,” and, yeah.

Kent pushed past him and muttered, “What else is new?” and he didn’t expect a response, but he did hear Swoops let out a long sigh, and then he heard the bathroom door close and lock click into place, and Kent tensed up for half a second, which-

Which was ridiculous, and he hated himself for it and he hated Jack for it and at the moment he kind of hated Swoops for it too, but he was fine.

He turned the lights out and he plugged his phone in and he crawled into bed, and maybe he counted the minutes that Swoops was in the shower for and maybe he breathed out a sigh of relief when the water turned off at six and Swoops was out of the bathroom five minutes after that, but all of that was beside the point.

The point was, was that he was fine.

They flew to Ottawa the next day and Toronto two days after that, and they played two more games before they headed home, and Kent only spoke to Swoops when it was absolutely necessary, and that was fine too.

 

//

 

Swoops was a good teammate.

It was an undeniable fact.

Grass was green, the earth was round, and Swoops was a good teammate.

Or, at least, he was a better teammate than Kent would ever be, because when Kent finally got around to apologizing to him for being a dick, Swoops accepted it without question, and he didn’t bring it up again, and he never brought it on the ice.

Sure, it hung between them for a while, but when it came time to practice, or to working out, or to play, Swoops was flawless.

Kent, on the other hand, was a bit of a mess.

Or, at least, he felt like a mess.

Going to Montreal threw him off and fucked him up and, no matter what he did, he just couldn’t get around it. He couldn’t get around the fact that the Zimmermann’s almost definitely blamed him for everything that happened to Jack, and he couldn’t get around the fact that he definitely did blame himself, and he couldn’t get around the fact that he shouldn’t be playing for the Las Vegas Aces at all.

Mostly, he couldn’t get around the fact that he was living the life that Jack should have been, and the guilt from that was drowning him.

When he missed shots, he told himself that Jack would have made them and, when he lost face offs, he told himself that Jack would have won them and, when he lost games in general, he told himself that Jack would never have let that happen, and he believed all of that from the bottom of his heart.

He believed that Jack was better than him and he knew that he was right so, when he scored his first hat trick but the Aces lost anyways, he wanted to scream.

He wanted to scream and cry and throw a fit but, in the end, he just waited until everybody left, and then he got back on the ice and took shots on an empty net, until he’d put a bucket of pucks in five times over, and could barely stand up straight anymore, and then he kept going because that’s what him and Jack did.

They pushed each other to be better, and they pushed each other until they couldn’t push any harder, and they pushed each other until they broke and, even if Jack’s voice in Kent’s head was the only thing left, Kent pushed back.

Of course, the lights flickered eventually and Kent knew how to take a hint, so he collected the pucks and cleared the ice, and when he got back to the locker room, he was surprised to find that he wasn’t alone.

Swoops was sitting on the bench scrolling through his phone like he had all the time in the world, and Kent was a tiny bit worried about what was coming next, but he was also a bit too tired to actually care.

For his part, Swoops looked Kent up and down, and then he said, “You know that loss wasn’t on you, right?” and Kent wanted to believe that more than anything else in the world, but-

But he just shrugged. “I almost had it at the end,” he said, thinking about the goal he could have scored if he’d had two more seconds, but Swoops just rolled his eyes.

“And I almost had it near the end of the first, and Jacobs almost had it at the beginning of the second, and Pattie almost had it at least four times during the game, so what’s your point?”

Kent blinked, taken aback by the sharpness in Swoops’ voice that was mirrored in his eyes. “I-” he started, but he didn’t know what to say and he kind of hated that Swoops had that effect on him, but Swoops just sat up straighter and raised an eyebrow.

“Do you think you’re the only one on this team who can score?” he asked, and-

“No,” Kent insisted, quickly, but Swoops just kept going.

“Do you think you’re the only one who’s ever felt bad after a loss?” he demanded, and Kent barely got in a ‘no’ before he went on with, “So what, then. Do you think you’re responsible for us winning or losing? Or do you think you’re carrying this team? Or that people expect you to? Because dude, I get that you went first in the draft, but-”

Kent’s brow was furrowed and he was frowning and he was mad, and he said, “Dude,  _ no _ ,” with venom in his voice, and Swoops didn’t say anything for a moment, and then he sighed.

His voice was softer and a tiny bit ashamed when he said, “I didn’t mean to get mad,” and then he swallowed and went on with, “And look, you don’t have to talk to me or anything but, Parse, for fucks sake, talk to somebody, okay?” and Kent blinked.

“I- what?” he asked after a moment, and Swoops gave him an unimpressed look.

“Look, you’ve been acting-  _ off  _ since Montreal, and everybody’s concerned but whenever we ask what’s up you bite our heads off so just-” 

“Talk to somebody?” Kent filled in, a little bit irritated and a little bit amused, despite everything, and Swoops sighed again.

“Yeah, Parser, talk to somebody, because we all care about you and we’re all worried about you, and you deserve to be happy, okay?”

Kent wanted to say ‘ _ okay _ .’ 

He wanted to breathe out the word, or cough it out, or spit it out, or just get the damn word out however he could so that their conversation could be over and he could go back to being miserable in peace, but he got lost somewhere along the way because Kent wasn’t even sure he remembered how to be happy.

He’d been fighting and working and  _ surviving  _ for months, and it was his rookie year in the NHL and it should have been the best time of his life, and yet-

And yet he was miserable, and Swoops was calling him out on it so, after a few moments too many, Kent worked up the courage to speak, and then he said, “I’ll try, okay?” and sounded small and lost, and Swoops nodded.

“Okay,” he said, and he made it sound like the easiest thing in the world, and then he leaned back in his seat and asked, “Do you want to grab something to eat?” and Kent found himself nodding.

 

//

 

Swoops was a good cook, and Kent learned that one morning when he woke up with a huge hangover, on a couch that he only vaguely recognized.

There was a pillow under his head and a blanket thrown over top of him and the light streaming through the window made his head pound, so he pushed his face into the pillow and pulled the blanket over his head. He whined when the move pulled the blanket off his feet, but he considered staying there forever.

He was having trouble remembering what had happened the night before, but he knew that he’d been at the Aces Christmas party and he knew that almost everybody had been there with family, and he knew that his mom hadn’t made it up to Vegas after all. Something about her new boyfriends’ kids’ Christmas concert at school that she just couldn’t miss, and that Kent just couldn’t bring himself to care about.

It was fine.

He’d had a drink and then another and then another, and apparently he’d had a lot after that too, and apparently he hadn’t made it back to Carl and Becca’s place, because that’s where his bed was and he was decidedly not in it.

With that thought in mind, he worked up the courage to brave his headache and look up again and, when he did, he blinked.

It took a moment, but he recognized the room he was in as being part of Swoops’ apartment, and a glance over to the open-concept kitchen that Swoops was cooking in confirmed that. The fact that Swoops was shirtless was an addition to the whole thing that Kent just wasn’t going to dwell on.

Instead, he cleared his throat and sat up and tried to say, “‘Sup,” and winced when the only sound that came out was a half-hearted croak.

Still, apparently it was enough to get Swoops’ attention, because he turned around with a mug halfway to his mouth and an eyebrow raised and, when he saw Kent, he cracked a soft smile. “Feeling better, Parse?” he asked, and Kent held back a groan.

He felt like dying, but he wasn’t going to admit it. “Great,” he said, and this time the word actually came out of his mouth, making it one of the saddest victories he’d ever experienced. “Just great.”

Swoops’ smile took a sympathetic turn. “Coffee?” he asked, and Kent nodded. He nodded and he watched Swoops grab a mug. “Milk or sugar?”

“Both,” Kent said, and then he added a, “Please,” and wrapped the blanket tighter around his shoulders before he got up to retrieve the drink. When he got to the island he leaned against it and muttered out, “Thanks,” before he wrapped his hands around the mug and revelled in the warmth.

For his part, Swoops just said, “No problem,” before he turned back to what looked like a giant omelet that smelt way too good considering the way Kent’s stomach was churning. He shook the frying pan and seemed to decide that it looked good, because he moved away and grabbed some plates. “You having some?” 

“... Sure,” Kent settled on, his curiosity winning out over his nausea, and then he said, “Thanks,” again, and Swoops shrugged it off.

“It looked like you had a rough night,” he commented, focusing his attention on plating the food, before he grabbed a bag of bread and asked, “Toast?”

Kent nodded and he was pretty sure it was an answer to both comments, even if he didn’t have enough information about the night before to give an informed answer.

Swoops seemed to get that, because he put the bread in the toaster, and then leaned against the counter, facing Kent, and crossed his arms. “You remember much, or was it a write off?” he asked, and Kent felt like shit.

He took a sip of the coffee and then stared down into it while he shrugged. “It’s, uh, kind of blank,” he said, more ashamed than he really wanted to be, and Swoops looked sympathetic but there was something else there as well.

“Well, don’t worry about it too much- Scraps found you before the coaches could and I don’t think anybody noticed how early we left, so.” Swoops accented the statement with a shrug that was the opposite of passive.

“We-” Kent started, but he stopped to let himself actually process that before he went on with, “Oh. I- thanks for that. And I’m sorry for- if I ruined your night.”

The toast popped and Swoops smiled a little bit, before he got back to work in the kitchen. “It’s cool,” he said, and then he added, “My family wasn’t there either, so it’s not like you were tearing me away from much,” and Kent raised an eyebrow.

A few memories from the party were slowly coming back to him, and he remembered seeing Swoops hanging out with a group of kids, but that was about it. “They couldn’t make it?” he asked, curious, and Swoops shook his head but when he turned back to Kent, he was also smiling.

“Nah, they meant to fly out yesterday morning, but my sister went into labour like an hour before they were going to leave, so they went to the hospital instead,” Swoops explained, and he was smiling and Kent felt a grin break out across his own face too.

“Shit, man, that’s fantastic,” he said, and Swoops’ smile only grew, and it was possibly the happiest Kent had ever seen him. “Are- is she- did it- Is there a baby yet, or whatever?” he asked, and Swoops laughed at that, and Kent felt his cheeks turn a tiny bit red.

“Yes, there’s a baby,” Swoops said, still laughing and shaking his head a tiny bit, while he grabbed his phone and then turned it towards Kent a few moments later. “Elizabeth Rose Troy. She was 7lb13oz, no complications or anything.”

Kent took the phone from Swoops to get a closer look, and he was kind of blown away. The kid was tiny and adorable and kind of perfect, and Kent had trouble believing that everybody he knew had started out that way, himself included.

Still, he just smiled and said, “She’s perfect,” and then he said, “Congratulations,” and let Swoops take the phone back.

There was something soft in Swoops’ eyes when he looked at the picture, and it seemed to resonate through Kent’s entire being. Still, Swoops shook it off a moment later and handed Kent a plate of food that honestly looked delicious, and nodded towards a drawer. 

“Utensils are in there, and I’ve seen the messes you make when you eat, so you’re sitting at the table,” he said, and Kent didn’t have it in him to fight, so he followed the instructions to a t.

He sat at the table and Swoops was close behind and, when Kent took a bite of his omelette shovelled onto a piece of toast, he had to hold back a moan. It also took a great deal of effort to chew and swallow the bite before he started talking and, when he finally did, he said, “Jesus  _ fuck _ , Swoops, this is the best thing I’ve ate in months,” and Swoops smiled.

He smiled and he rolled his eyes and said, “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me at all,” and Kent was too busy eating to respond to the chirp.

Instead, he ate the rest of his food and he asked more questions about Swoops’ niece and his family and his life, and normally that kind of thing would make Kent feel shitty about his own family, but this time it just made him feel warm. 

Being around Swoops made him feel warm, and Kent decided not to question it.

**Author's Note:**

> if you liked this and want to read more, let me know?


End file.
